‘Cong must change with times’

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, May 11: The NCP led by Mr Sharad Pawar on Sunday advised the Congress to change with the times while reminding that no single party in the country is in a position to rule on its own.

The advice came in the NCP’s national committee meeting and in the concluding address by Mr Pawar. Without naming the Congress, the Maratha strongman said that the "grand old party" needed to come out of the mindset of a landlord who lives in past glory. While explaining how coalitions have become a hard reality, not only at the national level but even in states, he said barring a few states the rest were ruled by coalition governments.

Moreover, efforts to cut strong regional leaders to size by the central leadership had also helped growth of coalitions, he observed. K. Kamraj, Morarji Desai, Sanjeev Reddy were some of the strong leaders in their states.

Mr Pawar said that the Congress has to take regional parties along as the days of single-party rule under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, which saw stalwarts, including Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, B.R. Ambedkar working under him, were over.

"Every state had a leader with a mass following and Nehru looked towards them as associates and showed them respect. But today the situation is not the same. Times have changed," he said. Without naming the Congress, Mr Pawar said an element of fear has crept in and mass leaders are not allowed to grow in their respective states as the central leadership looks at them as a threat and promote those with limited or no mass following.

Even the NCP’s draft resolution on the national political situation says: "The Congress, which is the principle party of the UPA, should make all efforts to build political consensus amongst like-minded secular parties. However, we feel anguished that in some states like Meghalaya and Manipur our positive approach to work with the Congress both before or after the elections was not accepted. We urge the Congress to have a more broad-minded approach, otherwise it will give a way for communal forces to raise their head again."

Meanwhile, strong demands for projecting Sharad Pawar as the prime ministerial candidate in the next polls were made at the meeting but the party supremo bluntly told leaders to work for expanding the organisation.